Typically, when a customer wishes to purchase or update an insurance policy, he works with an insurance agent to provide information and obtain quotes. A quoted insurance policy typically requires review and approval by an underwriter for the insurance company before it can be bound and become legally binding.
There are circumstances under which an insurance company may not allow certain operations to take place. For example, when the weather forecast indicates that a certain area will experience a hurricane in a few days, no new policy or updates to existing policies would be permitted until the weather condition passes. As another example, the rates for certain insurance products may be under regulatory review by the insurance bureau; therefore, no quotes can be generated for such products until regulatory approvals are obtained.
Currently, putting certain insurance policy related actions on hold is typically a manual process. The insurance agents or underwriters have to remember that certain actions for certain products are on hold so that they do not proceed with the unpermitted actions. The manual hold processing can be unreliable and error-prone, and can expose the insurance company to unwanted risks.